Eye care company Bausch & Lomb files for IPO

Eye care company Bausch & Lomb Holdings, owned by private equity firm Warburg Pincus, filed with US regulators to raise as much as $US100 million in an initial public offering.

The proposed IPO could raise as much as $US1.5 billion and is expected to value Bausch & Lomb at about $US9 billion to $US10 billion, Reuters reported earlier in March.

In a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday, the company said J.P.Morgan, BofA Merrill Lynch and Citigroup were the lead underwriters of the offering.

Warburg Pincus continues to explore a private sale of the company and is working with Goldman Sachs to find a buyer, a source had told Reuters.

Founded in 1853, Rochester, New York-based Bausch & Lomb makes contact lenses, eye drugs and surgical equipment and sells its products in more than 100 countries.

It was taken private by Warburg Pincus in 2007 for about $US4.5 billion, including $US830 million of debt, after it fell out of Wall Street's favour because of product recalls, big charges and restatements of earnings. Warburg Pincus committed over $US1 billion of equity toward the buyout.

The filing did not reveal how many shares would be on sale or their expected price.

The amount of money a company says it plans to raise in its first IPO filings is used to calculate registration fees. The final size of the IPO could be different.